The One Film That Was Too Scary For Stephen King
There's a reason Stephen King is known to many as the Master of Horror. Over the course of his 55-year career, King has written hundreds of short stories, novels, and scripts, and has been responsible for creating some of the most terrifying creatures ever put to page or screen. With an imagination as deep and dark as King's is, it's hard to imagine anything could be scary enough to truly frighten the author. But fear has a way of finding even the best of us, and this is the one film that was too scary for Stephen King.
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00:00 Master of horror Stephen King is responsible for spine-chilling stories that have terrorized
00:05 audiences all across the world for nearly 50 years.
00:09 Around 60 different films have been made as adaptations of his work, including Carrie,
00:13 The Shining, The Stand, Misery, Christine, The Dark Tower, Pet Sematary, Salem's Lot,
00:20 and of course, It.
00:21 "Tasty, tasty, beautiful fear."
00:28 It would be easy to believe that someone who dabbles in the monstrous and macabre like
00:31 Stephen King has a high tolerance for cinematic horror.
00:35 But at the end of the day, King is still human, just like the rest of us.
00:39 "If you want to use that kind of language, take it out in the street."
00:46 King isn't afraid to admit when something gets under his skin.
00:49 He famously referred to The Babadook as, quote, "deeply disturbing and highly recommended,"
00:54 noting that audiences don't watch the film so much as experience it.
00:58 "I don't want you to go away.
01:02 No, no, no, Mommy!"
01:05 It's become a badge of honor for horror filmmakers to receive a coveted recommendation from the
01:09 King of Nightmares himself.
01:11 But only one film holds the distinction of being so scary that even Stephen King couldn't
01:16 initially finish it.
01:18 In an interview for the documentary series Eli Roth's History of Horror, King shared a
01:22 story about the horrific real-life events that made it impossible for him to continue
01:27 watching one of the hottest new releases in horror, The Blair Witch Project.
01:31 "I'm scared to close my eyes.
01:35 I'm scared to open them."
01:37 On June 19, 1999, Stephen King was on a walk near his home in Maine when a distracted driver
01:43 ran him over in a minivan, leaving him hospitalized for almost a month.
01:48 King sustained multiple very serious injuries, to the point where doctors debated amputating
01:53 one of his legs due to the damage.
01:55 While King thankfully survived, the recovery process was understandably difficult.
02:00 The pain he endured was so severe, King had even announced a retirement from writing.
02:05 Fortunately, with time and healing, the author was able to recover and continue his career.
02:10 King's loved ones understandably wanted to help his healing in any way that they could,
02:15 and his son thought it would be a good idea to bring him a VHS copy of the terrifying
02:19 found-footage film, The Blair Witch Project.
02:22 Thanks to the combination of recovering from his injury, the talent of directors Daniel
02:26 Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, and an excess of painkillers, the movie proved to be too
02:31 much for King.
02:33 "I was in the hospital and I was doped up.
02:35 My son brought a VHS tape of it and he said, 'You gotta watch this.'
02:39 Halfway through it, I said, 'Turn it off, it's too freaky.'"
02:42 It's hard to remember the initial impact of The Blair Witch Project, as the film's found-footage
02:47 style has since become a dominant subgenre of horror.
02:50 During its 1999 debut, however, The Blair Witch Project was considered the scariest
02:54 film of the year.
02:56 Shot on a budget of only $60,000, the film was sold to Artisan Entertainment for $1.1
03:02 million just a few hours after its premiere at Sundance.
03:05 The film starred unknown actors Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams as
03:10 fictionalized versions of themselves, exploring woods in Maryland to film a documentary about
03:16 the Blair Witch urban legend.
03:18 "Flames are licking you like the devil there, Josh."
03:21 Thanks in large part to one of the earliest examples of a viral marketing campaign, many
03:25 people arrived at the theater convinced that the film they were about to see was real.
03:30 Subsequently, The Blair Witch Project became one of the most legendary horror films of
03:34 all time.
03:35 It may not have been the first film to utilize the found-footage aesthetic of horror filmmaking,
03:40 but it revitalized the style and paved the way for future horror franchises like Grave
03:45 Encounters and Paranormal Activity.
03:47 It was revolutionary for 1999, and still hailed for its effective scares, chilling establishment
03:53 of atmosphere, and one of the most memorable final moments in horror history.
04:08 Once King was out of the hospital, he did eventually finish the movie, and found it
04:12 to be one of the best horror films of the modern era.
04:15 When King's non-fiction book Don's Macabre was reissued in 2010, King included a section
04:20 for his thoughts on the state of horror at the time, with a short essay dedicated to
04:25 the masterful grasp of horror shown throughout The Blair Witch Project.
04:28 It reads,
04:29 "One thing about Blair Witch, the damn thing looks real.
04:33 Another thing about Blair Witch, the damn thing feels real.
04:36 And because it does, it's like the worst nightmare you ever had, the one you woke from gasping
04:41 and crying with relief because you thought you were buried alive, and it turned out the
04:45 cat jumped up on your bed and went to sleep on your chest."
04:49 Fear may be a universal emotion, but what scares us will always differ from person to
04:53 person.
04:54 Stephen King is living proof that even masters of horror still get scared, and there's no
04:59 shame in admitting when a horror movie has done its job.
05:02 [Dog barking]
05:04 (dog barking)